Gizmodo's iPhone Stunt Is Killing Journalism

This week, California police searched the home of Gizmodo blogger
Jason Chen and seized four computers and two servers. It sparked a
discussion about whether bloggers should be protected under reporter's shield laws.

A little background: Police
had acquired a warrant after Gizmodo retrieved a lost iPhone prototype
and published a series of stories about it. Prosecutors tried to justifiy the seizure by alleging that Gizmodo paid for stolen
goods. However a number of bloggers are sticking up for Gizmodo, asserting that bloggers like Jason Chen are journalists, and therefore fall under shield-law protection. But, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at
George Washington University, says such a ruling could hurt journalism. He explained himself on
Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night:

The concern by a lot of courts, but also some journalists, is that if
you define journalists so broadly to cover anybody with a blog, then it
becomes a distinction without meaning, and that eventually you`re going
to lose protections of the media, if everyone can be classified as a journalist. ...

This
is going to be a bad case that makes bad law for journalists. This is
not the case that journalist want to fight these issues on. Here you've
got someone who is being paid not for information in a typical
checkbook journalism case, but actually for property that belongs to
someone else. That makes it even worse than most of these
controversies. And I think what you're going to see is if this case
goes forward, it may define what that standard is. And I think a lot of
us who support press rights are very concerned how that might come --
turn out.

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